Product description

The ancient Maya shaped their world with stone tools. Lithic artifacts helped create the cityscape and were central to warfare and hunting, craft activities, cooking, and ritual performance. 'The Technology of Maya Civilization' examines Maya lithic artefacts made of chert, obsidian, silicified limestone, and jade to explore the relationship between ancient civilizations and natural resources. The volume presents case studies of archaeological sites in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. The analysis draws on innovative anthropological theory to argue that stone artefacts were not merely cultural products but tools that reproduced, modified, and created the fabric of society.

Author information

Zachary X. Hruby is an Instructor in the Department of Anthropology, Humboldt State University, California. With Rowan Flad, he is the editor of Rethinking Specialization in Complex Societies: Archaeological Analysis of the Social Meaning of Production (2007, American Anthropological Association). In addition to being a lithic analyst, Hruby is also known as a Mayan epigrapher. Hruby has worked at the Maya site of Piedras Negras, Guatemala, and is currently the Director of the Proyecto Costa Caribe. Geoffrey E. Braswell is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. He has also taught at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala and the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan. Braswell is the editor of The Maya and Teotihuacan: Reinterpreting Early Classic Interaction (2003, University of Texas Press). Braswell has conducted archaeological field work at Copan, (Honduras), Chichen Itza (Mexico), and at numerous sites in Guatemala. He is currently the Director of the Pusilha Archaeological Project, Belize. Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos is the Curator of the Museo Popol Vuh, Universidad de Francisco Marroquin, Guatemala. With Stephen Houston and David Stuart, he is the co-editor of The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing (2001, University of Oklahoma Press). Chinchilla is known for his extensive archaeological and iconographic work in Pacific Guatemala, particularly as the director of several projects in the Cotzumalhuapa region. Chinchilla has also published extensively on Maya hieroglyphs.